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This article demonstrates the core elements of a marketing plan. There are also lots of online resources, and of course there are lots of freelance advisers who you can speak to for advice on developing a marketing plan.

If, before you read this blog, you’re unsure about the need for a marketing plan, please see the blog Why have a Marketing Plan?

Scope

The first thing to think about is whether you are planning your company’s entire marketing activities across all channels, or simply narrowing the scope to think about how, perhaps, you will focus on one or two channels across the coming year.

For example, you may want to concentrate on your online marketing plan for the coming year, or your social media plan, or your PR plan.

Narrowing the scope of your marketing plan doesn’t make it less worthy. In many ways, the more that you can adopt a laser like focus to your marketing, the better.

The unwelcome challenge for many small businesses is trying to be everywhere, at all times. Given the capacity of your business and your people, plus the shape of your budget, it’s not possible to be across all channels at full volume. Focus is imperative.

Who is your marketing plan for?

If you are a one-person business, it’s easy to imagine that you don’t need a plan. You may tell yourself that the plan is in your head, and you have nobody else to convince.

So, in this particular instance, the plan is useful because it’s a clear documentation of the activities you need to commit to, and the timeline over which you expect to see the results.

The audience for your marketing plan could include colleagues in a partner business and perhaps your bank or funders. So, whether you’re a one-person business or a bigger enterprise, a marketing plan has value for you and others.

I’m keeping this light, so here’s a rundown of the core ingredients for a successful marketing plan.

Simple executive summary

The key word here is summary, not executive. Your summary should be four to six paragraphs and contain your business goals, your recent marketing successes, your future plans and other relevant context.

The process of documenting this will, in itself, provide focus for where you are now and where it is you want to be.

Set marketing goals

Your marketing goals don’t need to be complicated. In fact, the simpler the better. Think about the three key achievements you want to make in the next year.

This might be about brand awareness, acquisition of new customers, retention of existing valuable customers, understanding more about the value of your customer groups, or the development of new products or services.

Be specific in your goal statements. Goals tend to be number focussed rather than task focused. For example: ‘achieve more PR’ is not necessarily a goal, but ‘increase PR coverage to an average of five items of positive press coverage per month’ is certainly a measurable, if challenging, goal.

Also, when thinking about numbers, think about percentage increases of key numbers across the year, and the kind of uplift you are planning. E.g., ‘increase sales of (product line) by 8%.’

Be realistic about your numbers 

Get the balance right between aspiration and reality. Whilst there is a business philosophy that you should have ‘audacious’ goals, it’s also important to set goals that are realistic and achievable. Otherwise, you may think that you are never fulfilling your plan.

Understand and segment your customers

This comment might produce an eye roll. “Of course, I understand my customers! How do you think I got here?”  OK, we get that, but do you have a relentless understanding of who is shopping with you? And what they need from you? This insight is really important. So, continue to refresh and redefine who it is you serve, what they need and how can better serve them.

If your personal view is that your market hasn’t changed much in the last few years, the chances are that you need to reconsider it. Very few markets stand still.

In many ways, the extent to which you understand your customers is a cornerstone of your marketing plan. Because if you fail to understand who your customers are and what they need, then implicitly you are failing to deliver for them. And you may be missing a market opportunity.

You can improve your understanding of your customers by talking to them directly and segmenting them by profile, products and services they enjoy, and what they might like you to introduce. Remember, your customers shop with other businesses so are a great source of market insight. If you can’t see your customers face to face, contact them by phone or by e mail.

Competitor assessment: scrutinise the competition

A competitor assessment will be a valuable element of your marketing plan. Assessing your competitors, local and further afield, is easy to do but often overlooked in the bustle of running your own business.  However, time doing this will be well spent and will help to direct your thinking on how to develop your product and service offers.

Deeper competitor research

Scrutinise your competitors to understand more about them. What are they doing well? What are their website and online capabilities? How do they present their creative work? Research their social media and reviews to determine what customers make of their services and products. Learn from this and if appropriate adopt some of their ideas for yourself.

Key measurements

Part of your business measurement is to understand clearly where you are now. For example, with the success of your social media activity, your website traffic, your sales conversion ratios and ultimate sales volumes.

Once you have a clear baseline you can use this as the starting point for your planned growth and development.

Marketing strategy and actions.

It’s tempting to think of strategy as something abstract or intellectual. Strategy is simply what you will do. It is by definition a series of actions. So, if your strategy is full of vague, abstract (but good) intentions then it’s actually not a strategy. It’s a series of aspirations rather than a plan of action.

A simple technique to help frame your marketing strategy is Now, Next, Later.

Create a picture of the current status of your organisation and your marketing efforts. This is the ‘Now’ stage.

For the ‘Next’ stage, add the detail of the key things you need to work on to achieve the next productive leap in your business.

For the ‘Later’ stage add in the other elements that you will create or build upon, based on early successes, to enable you to achieve your marketing strategy.

Tracking and reporting

What gets measured gets done, and so tracking is really important to enable you to stay focused and learn where things are going well or possibly not so well.

Not achieving the results that you are looking for is not failure in itself. But not learning from those results can mean that you repeat an unsuccessful approach.

There is a wide range of online resources on marketing plans. You can download a free marketing plan template from HubSpot.